


this photograph is proof

by adreamaloud, daneorange (adreamaloud)



Series: everything must go [1]
Category: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Orange is the New Black
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:14:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2391326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/adreamaloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it goes for paris first. alex goes to mierzwiak on her first day out. that eternal sunshine au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dissolve me

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a Taking Back Sunday song. Also partly at fault: http://captainscarletts.tumblr.com/post/96856742085/orange-is-the-new-black-au-dissolve-me-an-alex
> 
> Liberties have been taken, errors are all mine.

 

_Would you like to forget?(Drop everything, start it all over?)  
_ -this photograph is proof, taking back sunday.

It goes for Paris first. 

It’s an out-of-body experience not unlike watching yourself get operated on from the hospital viewing deck, and to Alex it all feels like needles being pushed into her skin. _I’ve had worse,_ she reminds herself, watching the moment in that bedroom dissolve around the edges, caving in on Piper’s falling face.

_This is not how it ends._ “Top drawer,” she finds herself saying, going through the memory.

“You fucking hid it? Jesus, Alex.” The sound of a drawer opening and shutting, now sounding like it’s much further away.

The sound of her phone ringing. “Diane died this morning.” The voice sounds like it’s calling from a void, like the woman on the other end – _Who was it? Why don’t I remember?—_ is speaking into a towel wrapped around the receiver.

_It’s not real. It’s over. It’s done._ Alex tries to focus on Piper, now sitting on the bed beside her, only her face appears so fuzzy, like it’s been covered in thin gauze. Piper opens her mouth but nothing comes out. It starts feeling like someone just pushed the mute button, but let the show go on.

When Piper holds her face, her hands feel cold; Alex leans into the touch, thinking, _I need to go through this memory._ She tries remembering how hollowed out she felt, after Paris; how her chest had felt like an empty mansion.

When she looks at Piper again, the edges of her face are already fading. Alex tries to touch her back, remembering all the other things – that beach in Cambodia, that night in Bali, that village in Java. _If I could keep one,_ Alex thinks, and just like that she’s seeing Piper for the first time again, standing by the bar with her resume.

_No. Not this one. I want to keep this one._ Alex walks over to Piper, remembering how this went the first time around. “Hey,” Alex leans in, smiling as Piper turns to her. She looks exactly like she did that day they first met.

Piper asks, “Do you work here?”

_This is not how it ends._ “My name is Alex. Do you want to get out of here?”

*

That night Alex’s mind is a minefield – the minute she remembers something, it’s like she sets something off, and the landscape just keeps fading to black. She holds Piper’s hand as she ducks into an old building she doesn’t even remember ever going into.

“We’ll be safe here,” she tells Piper, sitting her down in the corner. The building is empty, save for two seats in the far corner. At this time of the night, it is dimly lit and deserted.

“Who are you?” Piper asks, but she’s smiling.  _God, this smile,_ Alex just thinks, smiling right back. 

“I’m Alex,” she says again. “Do you remember me?”

Piper just says, “What do you do?” She bats her eyelashes at Alex, as if some specific brain procedure isn’t out to erase every bit of her from Alex’s mind.

“I work for an international drug cartel,” Alex says anyway, playing along. When she looks up, she finds the roof slowly crumbling, the night sky coming into view. “The stars are out,” she says, turning to Piper, who’s now looking at her with sadder eyes – in that split-second shifting from wide-eyed wonder to weary disappointment.

Piper hangs onto her hand tighter. “I feel like I’m disappearing.”

*

The beach in Cambodia is deserted, and Alex opens her hand to see two small pills still untouched in her palm. It makes her want to laugh. _Mind-altering drugs? Really?_ “Want some?”

Piper turns to her, shrugging. “Why not?” She looks around, breathing in. “No one’s coming.” From afar, Alex can hear thunder. “Why are you doing this?" 

“E?” Alex asks, popping one of the pills into her mouth. She knows that isn’t the question here. “Like you said—why not?”

“Not what I meant,” Piper says, shaking her head. She gestures around her as the wind picks up. A storm is coming; Alex can feel it in her bones, the waves crashing in harder against the shore. “I meant _this._ ”

_I’m so sorry._ “Like you left me with a choice.” Thunder rumbles closer, and Alex just thinks, _It is time._ She grabs Piper’s hand and pulls. “No time to argue,” she just says; not that Piper’s complaining.

Alex does not recognize the car parked at the end of the beach, but they run to it anyhow as the beach folds around them slowly, like someone putting away a map. Piper laughs drily.

“You’re doing pretty well at destroying everything,” Piper says, putting her glasses on as Alex turns into the highway, equally empty.

Alex laughs in kind. _We’ll remember none of the grudges we’re keeping,_ she thinks. “What can I say? I’m the master of handling things wrong.”

“You are,” says Piper.

The drive is long and quiet. Alex doesn’t remember much about being in a car with Piper – they’re mostly planes and airports and missing far too many connecting flights.

Stealing glances at Piper sleeping in the passenger seat, Alex thinks, _I am hiding you here, where no one can see._ She drives on until morning, the road unending.

*

“Oh, honey, what are you doing out there?”

Alex wakes with a start, heart pounding as she finds the front seat empty. _Piper_. Alex squints at the light, looking around, trying to breathe.

( _We almost have her back._ There are whispers in her head. _Sir. Her heart rate’s up. Her heart’s racing—Sir, what do we do?_ )

_I have to calm the fuck down._ Alex breathes in, shifting her attention to the other voice. _Breathe, Vause._ “Honey?”

Alex’s throat is dry. _Oh fuck no, not this too._ “Mom?” She looks around again, trying to focus this time. _Which memory is this?_ “Have you seen Piper?”

“In the kitchen, making coffee,” Diane’s saying. “Come on in, you’re missing the show.”

_Fucking hell._ Alex pushes the door open, shivering as a cold gust of wind wraps around her. It’s snowing.

She’s driven them right into Christmas.

*

Alex spends a couple of minutes just staring at the back of Diane and Piper’s heads, sitting close together on the couch, the TV screen flickering ahead of them. Alex keeps looking until her eyes begin to sting.

_Keep this, keep this, keep this—_

*

“So,” Piper turns to Alex, when the movie’s done. She hands her a cup of coffee, and in this light, Piper looks so young, it breaks Alex’s heart. _How did we get so far away from here?_ Alex wonders, taking the mug from Piper’s hands.

“So?” Alex says back, sipping.

“Your mother is so nice,” Piper offers. “I wish—”

“She already likes you more than she does me,” Alex says, smiling as she looks down. She remembers this moment so vividly: Piper wiggling her toes while wearing Diane’s favorite socks, the faux wood underneath her feet so shiny. “Nobody gets those socks.”

From the kitchen, Diane peeks in, laughing. “You two – don’t stay up too late.”

Piper laughs. “But it’s Christmas.”

Alex breathes in. The room smells of vanilla and cinnamon and Piper and her mom, and Alex’s chest feels like bursting.

When she looks back down, the patterns on Piper’s socks have started fading, the walls around them dimming ominously. _Here we go._

“Piper,” she just says, holding out her hand.

Piper sighs. “We’ll just have to keep on running, won’t we?”

“As long as it takes,” Alex says.

*

“How does it work?” Piper asks finally, once Alex has deposited her in one of her pre-Piper haunts – an old hotel in Barcelona, where the window opens to the rest of the city. 

“How does what work?” They’re at the balcony; it must be early morning. The air is cold and crisp, but when Alex looks at her phone, the time’s all jumbled; it says _26:57._

_We’re not only out of time, are we? We’re right outside of it._ Alex sighs, reaching into her pocket absently, fingers brushing against a forgotten pack of cigarettes.

“This whole _erasing_ thing – you mean to say the procedure’s basically brain damage?”

_Brain damage._ Alex turns to her, smiling, unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. “Well. Now that you mention it, I suppose I’ve had worse.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Piper says, snatching the cigarette from Alex’s lips right before she gets to light it. “ _Alex._ I thought we’d already kicked this.”

“I’m currently lying in my bed submitting myself to _brain damage_ ,” says Alex, slipping another cigarette out of her pocket. “Trust me—this cigarette is going to be the least of my problems.” She ducks slightly to light it, palm curved around the flame.

Piper pouts. “Fuck it,” she says. “Come closer.” Alex shuffles toward her, both hands now curved around the air between their two cigarettes as Piper leans in for a light. Alex watches as the smoke briefly clouds Piper’s face.

_This,_ Alex thinks, drawing from her cigarette and letting the smoke settle in her chest warmly. Piper lets out a little cough. “Your cigarettes are stale,” she says.

“Sorry I don’t stash fresh cigs in the corners of my mind, kid,” Alex replies, watching Piper take another drag. She’s almost forgotten how lovely this is, just standing there and watching her smoke in silence.

“I suppose we don’t get to choose,” says Piper, exhaling, her lips forming a small “o” around the thin wisp of smoke. It makes Alex want to step closer and kiss her.

And so she does. Dropping her cigarette, she takes Piper’s face in her hands and pulls her in slowly, like they have all the time in the world; like this is not just all in her head and she’s not about to have Piper completely obliterated in her memories by morning.

Around them Barcelona starts greying, like they’d skipped the rest of the day and headed right into nightfall. When Alex pulls away from the kiss, there’s that distant rumbling again. Looking out from the balcony, she sees city buildings falling, falling.

“You’re destroying Barcelona for me,” Piper says, fingers digging into Alex’s shirt. “How romantic.”

Alex smiles. “You know how this goes.”

* 

They run through a long dark corridor, lined with people they once knew – old mules and random drug ring members, Fahri and Polly, Kubra and Larry, standing side-by-side with other time-worn versions of themselves, their skins in varying degrees of pale and paler. There’s Polly from when Alex first met her in their new-ish apartment in Northampton, and Larry from that visit in Litchfield, and Kubra from their first meet-up, post-Paris.

_What happened to you, Vause?_ Kubra mouths at her; he has no voice, but she remembers the tone he’d taken with her, that time – half-pity, half-disgust. Alex had never felt so small all her life.

“What are we doing here?” Piper asks finally.

“We’re just passing through.” Alex squeezes Piper’s hand tighter. “Come on. This way.”

The corridor seems endless, and Alex has to squint to see the light at the very end. The half-open door leads to a bookstore; of course, it does. Alex knows this one like the back of her hand – it’s one of those pre-Piper haunts again, and Alex breathes a little easier, tugging Piper along behind her.

“Where are we?”

“An old hangout,” says Alex, running her hands through the shelves. They’re in the non-fiction section, surrounded by biographies of dead people, and Piper looks around, wide-eyed. “This was before you.”

“I hate you for not bringing me here,” Piper says, eyes fixed on the shelves. “Why didn’t you?” This library is housed in a four-story building, and Alex still remembers going in here during lunch break – after all, reading a book is better than eating lunch in the girls’ bathroom.

Alex sighs at the memory as she picks a random book off the shelf, but when she leafs through it, the pages are empty. Alex shrugs. “Guess I had to keep something for myself,” she just says, shutting the book. When she looks at the shelves again, the spines are all white. “Remember that library in Beijing? Massive wasn’t that?”

Piper smiles, nodding. “All that pretty ancient calligraphy,” she says. “Kept and preserved throughout the centuries.” She pauses at that, turning to Alex, her smile fading. “Unlike us. You and me, we’re not built to last, are we?”

Alex swallows hard at that, trying not to let on that she’s choking up. “Were we ever?” she just asks back. Overhead, the lights start going out. The pounding in Alex’s chest resumes. “They’ve found us.”

“Already?”

“You’re the only one I think about,” says Alex. “I think by now they’ve already figured out that all the synapse activity in my brain is _you_.”

Piper breathes in, colour returning to her cheeks. “Well then,” she just says, reaching out for Alex’s hand. “We just have to run faster, don’t we?”

_*_

Alex leads them to a rave party by the beach next. Piper lets out a loud whoop at the sight, raising Alex’s hand in hers and twirling underneath the lights. The music pounds against Alex’s ears, and the next thing she knows, Piper’s turning to her, margaritas in hand.

“You do know you’re erasing Ibiza, right?” Piper says, pushing the glass against Alex’s hand. _Do I dare take a sip?_ She looks at her glass before thinking, _Fuck it._ The flavour is full and ripe in her mouth; she feels so oddly _alive_ it hurts, like the edges of her skin are coming apart.

Alex watches as Piper starts dancing, her figure silhouetted against the bonfire, and she holds her breath throughout, eyes tracing the movement of Piper’s limbs. The word that first comes to her is _unfurl._

“You’re staring,” Piper says, grinning because she _knows_ exactly what’s going on here. Alex mouth is dry, remembering that night at the bar, pulling Piper into the bathroom and—

“ _Alex._ ” When Alex looks again, the people are leaving and the bonfire’s almost out. The air smells like saltwater and smoke. “Drink up, we have to go.”

_We have to go._ Alex finishes her drink in one swift move before tossing her glass aside. The wind’s picking up again, the waves crashing in louder. Around them the party’s completely dead, and the beach is deserted.

“There goes Ibiza,” Piper says, walking toward the far end of the shore.

*

They run around in airports, going up and down escalators, going past Customs over and over. Piper tugs at luggage going around the baggage belts, turning them around and around before leaving them alone.

“What are you doing, Pipes?”

“A hundred grand,” she just says, not looking at Alex. “What were we even thinking?”

_Too late for regrets,_ Alex just thinks. In the end, she says nothing.

They’re at Frederic Chopin International in Warsaw when Alex realizes she wants to call it off. “Jesus fuck,” she yells at the airport’s roof. “I want to call this off!” No response. The airport is silent, save for the sound their heels make as they walk around. “Can you hear me? I said I want to call this off!”

“What, like a wedding?” Piper asks, coming up to her with a cup of coffee. “Here. Calm down.”

“I’m _erasing you,_ Piper. Don’t you understand? If this doesn’t stop, when I wake up tomorrow, you won’t be _there_.”

“So?” Piper takes a sip from her coffee, closing her eyes to savor the taste. “Goddamn,” she says. “Even the coffee tastes much better when we’re in your head.”

“ _Piper._ ” Alex looks around, watching the people milling about the airport disappear one by one. Outside, a snow storm blankets the planes on the ground in white, and she feels the chill get past the building’s walls.

“Come on, Alex – you _wanted_ this bad enough,” Piper says. “Might as well get it over and done with.”

“That was before—” Alex pauses, thinking about the words. “That was before we found all these pieces of you I’d rather not forget,” she says quietly. “Pieces of us.”

Piper shakes her head. “Too bad then,” she says, walking backwards as she pours the rest of her coffee on the floor. “You should have thought this thing completely through.”

*

“Do you remember how this goes?”

_This is how it ends._

“Are you ready, Alex?”

Alex blinks. Time to finish what they’d started. “Do you _remember_ how this goes?” she asks again.

Piper swallows hard. “Your mother dies,” she says. “And I still leave.”

“Yes.”

“This is why we’re here erasing things in the first place.”

“Yes.”

The ground is shaking in Paris. Alex hears chandeliers crashing to the floor – perhaps from the room down the hall.

“Do you ever wish we could do this over?” Piper asks. Alex furrows her brow, confused.

“We don’t have time,” Alex says. “We can’t change anything.”

“If I stayed, would it have made a difference?”

“What are you _doing_ , Piper?” Alex is frantic. This is not how it ends. “You’re looking for your passport, I hid it in the top drawer; you’re supposed to be mad—”

“You knew I had to leave, right?” Piper says. She’s not getting up from the bed; they’re running behind schedule. Behind her, the paint is peeling and the shelves are falling apart. “Otherwise—”

“Otherwise what?” says Alex. The feeling’s fresh in her chest now, like a newly picked-apart wound. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a shot at a normal life?”

“You’re an all-consuming thing, Alex,” Piper says, looking around as the walls start closing in. “Always have been.”

“You _have_ to go,” Alex says. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to end.”

“Tell me again,” Piper says instead, calm like the room isn’t caving in on the two of them as they speak. “Didn’t you want two tickets on the next flight out?”

“Piper.”

“ _Tell me again._ ”

“I—” Alex swallows, that tell-tale bitterness in the base of her throat signalling the start of tears. “I need you to book two seats on the next flight out, Pipes.” And then, “You have to say it.”

Piper sets her jaw, shakes her head. “This time I get to stay.”

“ _No._ ” The room starts folding slowly inward, corners disappearing one by one, lamps shattering all around. “This is _not_ how it goes.”

“This time,” Piper says, looking at her levelly, her skin flickering; the edges of her starting to pixelate and blur. “This time you get to erase me for good.”

It starts slowly – and then all at once. Like someone just shut the lights. The bed is gone, the room is gone.

Piper is gone.

*


	2. epilogue

Alex wakes up with a pounding feeling in her temple.

The sun’s out and when she looks toward the side-table she sees a glass of water. She’s so parched that she doesn’t even think about it twice.

_What the fuck just happened? Where the fuck am I?_

 

*

Alex takes the first flight out to anywhere. She feels so  _lost_ , like something’s just been taken from her, and she just couldn’t put her finger on what it is.

Hours later, she finds herself in the middle of Schiphol, sleepless with a backpack upon her shoulder, watching the flight screen scroll information slowly. When she sees  _Paris_ there’s the curious recoil in her shoulder that she wonders briefly about before ultimately ignoring.

_No Paris then,_ she just thinks. Times like these you go with your gut instincts, no? She feels the same way about Brussels and Istanbul and Bali, for reasons she cannot pinpoint—there is nothing here that explains any of it, apart from that vivid pulsing deep in her gut.

Eventually, she finds herself patting her pockets absently, feeling for a pen.

“Here.” When her search proves fruitless, a woman appears right beside her, offering her pen graciously. “You look like you could use this.”

“I do,” Alex says, pulling out a small notebook from her back pocket. “May I?” The woman shrugs, and Alex feels the faintest jolt as her hand brushes against hers when she moves to take it.

“Where to?”

Alex is writing down details for flights at least four hours away – any flight to any city, actually. “Not sure yet,” she says.

“A spontaneous traveler. Wow.”

Alex shakes her head. “I’m just looking for something. I think.”

“Everybody’s looking for something.”

Alex turns to her fully at that, for the first time actually  _looking_ at her.  _Do I know you from somewhere?_ she thinks idly, studying the contours of her face – familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.  _I should probably get some sleep soon._

“And what are you looking for?” Alex asks.

“I’m not sure either.”

“A spontaneous traveler.  _Wow_ ,” Alex says, mimicking her earlier comment.

“Fine. Kind of,” she says, laughing. And then: “You didn’t answer my question: Where are you going?”

Alex shrugs, returning the pen and shutting her notebook. “Nanning, maybe. I don’t know.”

“What’s in Nanning?”

“Just somewhere I’ve never been.”

“Clean slates. You’re into that kind of thing?”

Alex nods. “You can say that.” And then: “Are you always this chatty with strangers?”

“Oh,” the woman says, laughing lightly. “Sorry. I don’t feel like we’re strangers, though.”

“Just two people who don’t know each other’s names yet, am I right?” It’s Alex’s turn to laugh.  _Well. Why not?_ She watches as the woman offers her hand first.

“Piper Chapman,” she says by way of introduction. Her handshake is firm but her hand is  _soft_ , and Alex almost forgets to reply. “And you are?”

Alex clears her throat, adjusting her glasses. “My name is Alex,” she says.

_Piper. How lovely._ Alex spends the rest of the afternoon waiting for her flight, rolling the name around on her tongue.

_*_

They speak little on the flight to Nanning, preferring instead to sit side-by-side, quietly reading.

For some reason, Alex feels like they’ve done this thing before.#


End file.
